


Oops (Didn't Mean It)

by ihaveacleverfandomurl



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Fluff, Kevin's only accidentally an asshole, M/M, Misunderstandings, Professional Exy (All For The Game), Sassy Neil Josten, Sports Reporter Neil Josten, but Neil will still fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:48:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22158859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ihaveacleverfandomurl/pseuds/ihaveacleverfandomurl
Summary: “Kev, you good?” Jeremy Knox murmured from his other side, bumping Kevin’s arm with an elbow.Kevin could only turn to him and quietly croak in bisexual panic, “Lookat him.”Because Neil Josten, from Exy Unlimited Magazine, was a sight to behold — redheaded, blue eyed, and smattered with freckles, with a tilt to his head that would have betrayed the fire in him, even if the question itself hadn’t been such a bold-faced challenge.In which Kevin is a dumbass professional Exy player and Neil is a spitfire sports reporter who has to deal with his bullshit.
Relationships: Kevin Day/Neil Josten
Comments: 13
Kudos: 246





	Oops (Didn't Mean It)

**Author's Note:**

> WE FINALLY OUT HERE WITH SOME KEVINEIL,, BOUT TIME TBH,, I based this off of the Meet Ugly prompts [here](https://foxy-exy.tumblr.com/post/189164428140/veronicabunchwrites-100-meet-ugly-writing)!  
> 05\. I’m a pro-athlete at a press conference and I make a comment to my buddy about you because I forgot my mic was on  
> 07\. I’m assigned to write a piece rounding up all the bad press that you, a famous celebrity, have been getting and you show up in my office and demand me to write a retraction and get the ‘real’ story  
> Thanks to Eli & Asas for helpin me pick em out y’all my Blessed AFTG Discord Fam n I lov <3  
> it’s 3:30am and I probably didn’t make enough editing passes through this but here it is i've been in such a writing slump recently so thank god ;_;

“Neil Josten, from Exy Unlimited Magazine. Kevin, what are your thoughts on your recently departed teammate’s tell-all about your team? In particular, the frequent mentions of how off camera, you’re — pardon me, I quote — ‘an asshole’?”

Kevin Day felt the corner of his still falsely grinning mouth twitch. The florescent lights of the too-small press conference room were flickering, his legs were aching from a long game, and beside him, Andrew fucking Minyard was examining his nails with an air of infuriating… _humor_. Kevin tried not to crumple the still half full water bottle clutched in his fist into a ball and finally tore his eyes from the tabletop.

He’d begun to speak before he found Josten’s raised eyebrow. “Gordon can say whatever he wants if he’s bitter but unfortunately for him, we traded him —” the last half of his sentence came out strangled as he met the reporter’s gaze in the crowd “— because of his lack of skill, not…because…of any personal feelings…”

Oh. Those eyes were…

“Kev, you good?” Jeremy Knox murmured from his other side, bumping Kevin’s arm with an elbow.

Kevin could only turn to him and quietly croak in bisexual panic, “ _Look_ at him.”

Because Neil Josten, from Exy Unlimited Magazine, was a sight to behold — redheaded, blue eyed, and smattered with freckles, with a tilt to his head that would have betrayed the fire in him, even if the question itself hadn’t been such a bold-faced challenge.

Except Jeremy was recoiling with visible panic on his face as he turned to the room, hands raised, and the press began to mutter in scandalized tones because —

They were miked. Kevin’s inaudible comment had been caught by the sound equipment and broadcasted to the whole of the room.

Including Neil Josten, of Exy Unlimited Magazine, who still stood alone in the crowd, but now with a face that matched his hair, holding the phone recording the room to his chest. “I guess that answers my question about just how true Seth Gordon’s statements were, then.”

What. _What_?

Suddenly their coach was tugging Kevin’s mic from its spot on the table and attempting to restore order in a room going wild. “I’m sure that’s not what Kevin meant, sir, he just —”

“What did I…? Andrew?” Kevin turned to the teammate that might actually give him a straight answer on how exactly he was an asshole this time.

Andrew sneered at him, no longer amused. “Commenting on scars is the fucking lowest of the low, Day.”

And Kevin had to watch helplessly as Exy Unlimited Magazine’s Neil Josten sent him one last scathing look before pushing out of the mob of shouting press, out of the entire room. Not knowing what Kevin had meant at all. Because…he’d had scars on his face. And that was what he’d thought Kevin was commenting on.

Well, fuck.

* * *

Neil Josten’s ears burned as he picked out his whispered name once again and felt the prickle of coworkers’ eyes on him.

It had been a week since The Incident. His boss had been gruffly sympathetic enough to agree that Neil didn’t need to explore this particular angle in depth in his coverage of Kevin Day. But the other news outlets in that press room had no such tact.

No, Neil’s name had been sprinkled in across articles, blog posts, tweets and YouTube clips, dragged through the mud in the mouths of Exy fans everywhere: Kevin Day’s public façade had cracked, and infamy came with it. Alongside either careful tiptoeing or downright flagrant harassment on the topic of Neil’s face.

“Josten.”

Neil interrupted the self-pitying march down the halls of Exy Unlimited to double back at the sound of his boss’s voice, a softer call than Wymack’s usual bark. Sure enough, David Wymack was hanging out the door of his office looking almost…awkward — his jaw working, his eyes narrowing as he crooked a finger at Neil.

“Is something wrong?” Neil asked as he joined the man at the door, feeling a little sullen. What, was he in trouble now with Wymack on top of everything else?

“I have someone who wants to talk to you in there.”

“What?” Neil blinked up at him. “Since when do you entertain people in your office? Is it another journalist come to laugh?”

Wymack coughed and searched the ceiling for a moment before turning his usual glare on Neil. “Listen, he’s talked to me at length about this. So, Neil, if you do one thing for me in your life, don’t turn around and leave right away. Let him say his piece. Or he won’t shut the fuck up about it for another month at least.”

Neil opened his mouth to argue — or at least _question_ — what on earth was going on exactly, but Wymack was already ushering him in and closing the door behind him and —

Kevin Day swiveled around in Wymack’s chair at the sound of the door closing. His usually carefully coiffed hair was messy, and pink spots were high on his cheeks as he stared at Neil and Neil stared at him.

“Fuck you,” Neil managed to snarl before turning to shove back open the door. Only, a heavy weight was leaning against it — fucking Wymack, fucking trapping him in here with _this asshole_ —

“Wait, wait!”

Neil stiffened at the presence at his back and slowly turned to glower up at Kevin Day, Exy icon who’d singlehandedly ruined his life. Neil’s eyes caught on the queen tattoo on his cheekbone for an unwilling moment of starstruck dry-mouthedness — Kevin had been one of the men Neil had idolized since Exy’s inception, after all, as a die-hard fan — but it didn’t last for long. God, why did the dick have to be so fucking tall? “What the fuck do you have to say to me?”

Kevin’s eye twitched and he dug hands into his pockets — _of course_ designer jeans. “I’m…sorry. At the press conference, it sounded worse than I meant. I was complimenting you.”

Neil had to pause for several moments to try to absorb what exactly the man seemed to be trying to say. It was a fruitless attempt. “What’s your game? Trying to put a sympathetic spin on a PR disaster? That makes no sense.”

Kevin turned back to lean against the desk, fingers clenching white around the corner. “My coach just wanted me to let all this mess die down. But I’ll give you an exclusive, you can set the record straight.” He lifted a hand to run restlessly through his hair — an answer for how messy it had become — and scowled fiercely at Neil. “I wasn’t being rude, all right, I was — I was talking about —”

Neil took the four steps that had taken Kevin two to get to the desk and stabbed a finger into Kevin’s chest. Old rage was fire inside his ribs. His dead father’s abuse marked him, was now publicly debated, and this stuck up rich boy was just worried about how good he looked in front of the media. “‘This mess’ will not die down for me, Kevin Day. You think this won’t follow me? I’ll be _that_ Neil Josten my whole career. Forgive me if my heart doesn’t bleed for you and your _bad PR_ that people will forget about the next time you score. If that’s all this is to you, then I’ve heard enough.”

Kevin had to grace to look almost contrite as his mouth hung open, for once, in silence. Neil took it as quiet acquiescence and when he went to try the door handle, it turned, this time.

“Hang on. I didn’t mean that either.” From over Neil’s shoulder, Kevin’s voice was the same tone of strangled it had been at the press conference. “Because I really am sorry. I’d like to make a second impression, that isn’t — me being an asshole. Andrew said that’s what I was being. I’m doing it again.”

Neil rolled his eyes. “Somehow, I agree with Andrew Minyard on something. I just don’t get your angle on the whole _compliment_ thing.”

“Neil. Let me start over, all right?”

When he turned around, arms folded and eyes narrowed, Kevin looked curiously, thoroughly pink, but his gaze was steady and his words carried the kind of ferocity he usually seemed to save for Exy discussions.

“It didn’t come out right. But I meant what I said. I said it because —” and he flushed yet harder as his voice wavered ever so slightly “— you’re attractive, and I came here because I wanted to let you know that much, at least. That that’s what I meant.” Quieter, tacked on, but sincere, “And I’m sorry that it made other people degrade you, too.”

Neil felt any smart retorts he had waiting at the tip of his tongue fizzle out completely as Kevin Day sat there, leaning against his boss’s desk, crisp collared shirt rolled up to his elbows, dark eyebrows quirked and green eyes intense — looking straight out of one of his magazine spreads that Neil may have saved in a drawer once or twice because —

Because he was _Kevin Day_ , and he was a _star_ , and he had no business calling Neil Josten _attractive_.

“What,” Neil managed intelligently.

Kevin seemed to think he needed to double down, and repeated, “I’m sorry.”

“No, no, what do you mean. I’m attractive? That’s what you…”

Kevin hesitated and ran his tongue over perfectly white teeth. “I…should have led with that, shouldn’t I?”

“Holy fuck, you two imbeciles.” Wymack’s door was swinging open to admit the man himself with a frown so fierce it could send interns running. “Neil, Kevin wants to ask you out, but he’s too stupid to pull his head out of his own ass about it. Kevin, aside from your idiotic foot-in-mouth moments, Neil’s been obsessed with you the entirety of the time I’ve known him, so don’t fuck it up and maybe you have a chance. Now, both of you, get the hell out of my office and maybe grab some coffee downstairs.”

Neil moved in the same breath as Kevin for the door, both struck entirely dumb but seemingly well trained when it came to dealing with Wymack.

“And Josten?”

Neil stopped, turned back. Kevin was a distractingly warm presence hovering at his back now, and he barely focused on a half-grinning Wymack gathering papers from his desk. “Uh, yes, sir?”

“I want the Kevin Day article on my desk next week. I think you’ll be able to finish it now.”

**Author's Note:**

> god it’s hard to get kevin day to figure out people things,,  
> (also obviously Wymack be kevin’s dad still but they keep it on the down low and there wasn’t really a good moment to stick in neil finding out about it but hey lol)  
> SHIT I WANNA WRITE MORE KEVINEIL NOW Y’ALL TF,, send me prompts from [any of these lists](https://foxy-exy.tumblr.com/tagged/prompts) on tumblr and maybe i'll,, do more 👀  
> -  
> chat to me about aftg on tumblr @[foxy-exy](https://foxy-exy.tumblr.com/)! [Here's the rebloggable fic post](https://foxy-exy.tumblr.com/post/190119166253/oops-didnt-mean-it)! & here's [my cosplay instagram](https://www.instagram.com/kayizcray/) with some aftg cosplay on it!  
> -  
> comments are my lifeblood ( ˘ ³˘)♥


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